Being Afraid
by Adnesle
Summary: Zo'or is afraid in KYEC. Spoilers for that episode. Usual disclaimers, some typos might be there. Liam/Zo'or-ish, only friendly. Good read.


BEING AFRAID  
  
  
  
The cool wind, proper to every summer nights had risen, the leaves had weaved a strange net over his head and their dark forms were masking the stars. It was like someone had wrapped the sky up in this vegetal net. The light of the sun faded away faster than he would have thought possible, the coldness growing as the now redish star set under the horizon. Trees, woods, and branches all was profiled in black against the view of the pastel sky. Being himself used to the urban view – his three years of life giving him very little references and the memories of his parents being mostly unaccessible – this wild landscape was somewhat strange to him. But then, even the familiar view of Earth always had left him with a knot on his stomach and a weight on his shoulders, the feeling not to belong in this place, but this was different. There were none of the noises of downtown Washington anymore, none of the regular beating, set to be like one's heart, of the music from the next floor, from the Flat Planet, none of the flashing, spiralling lights of neons drawing pathways of colors in his windows… None of the sharpness and the rapidity of his living place.  
  
Liam threw his head back and looked up : he had never seen so much stars. Or not from Earth. But from here, he could see the irregular lacing paterns of the milky way, this serpent of star in the sky.  
  
He bitterly recalled, as he yawned, that Zo'or occupied the only available bed, which meant that he would probably spend the most memorable of the many nights he often spent awake and upright, in the coolness of this night of June that had just covered the ground like a blanket. Some meters away from their habitaion, the fire was the only light in the darkness now that all natives had closed candles, lamps and others. The coolness became coldness as Liam faced the truth : his coton shirt would not offer him much protection against the lowering temperature.  
  
The young man got to his feet, seemingly unfolding his 6'5'' and bent forward to pass under the wood-made doorframe, which door he closed as silently as he could, attempting to avoid the screaming of the eaten pieces of metal, a care that was quite useless still : Zo'or was still plunged deep into the comatose state that Liam could not help but being worried about. Yes, he could not be completely insensible toward Zo'or, he who had always figured the the death of this Taelon would be for the greater good, but the previous conversation he had had with the Synod Leader had had held a certain degree of melancholy that he could not ignore. Renée would certainly have kept displaying the same icy attitude that she always did with Taelons, not preoccupying herself with situation or circumstances. But he could not feel yet the same level of hatred she had cultivated for the Companions.  
  
If there had not been in the eyes of the Synod Leader, out of himself and thrown down from his higher rank by his moratal wound, a dark lightning of sanity, Liam would have hesitated, wondered if he were not listening to the delirium of a Taelon. It would have been justified in this case, or, correction, it would have been normal, perhaps even expected, for a Human, but Zo'or was a Taelon.  
  
The protector found his leather coat, previously hanging of the uncertain chair, rolled it in an approximatively comfortable pillow and sat down onto the wooded floor, placing his new pillow-coat under his head, hoping by this to find some sleep for the next ten hours or so that would come. They would have much to do, both in words and actions, he should rest now that he could. They would have many things to do on tomorrow… if Zo'or made it through the night. With this thought, his eyes snapped open again and he glanced at the unmoving form of the injured Taelon, feeling relieved as there seemed to be no significative changes. He closed his eyes again.  
  
In any ways that his dreams turned to, Liam always came back to the same point : his eyes coming wide-open again as soon as he felt himself being touched with the heaviness of sleep. He would not fall asleep, he would not allow himself to fall asleep just in case… that Zo'or would pass away.  
  
After a whole hour of this half-sleep that left him, not only increasingly tired, but that rendered him impatient toward himself, impatient and nervous in the fact that he knew he should or could do something, but that he somehow chose not to do it. He would not fall asleep or witness while Zo'or was agonizing, diven in the pain that made his moan unconsciously since some minutes.  
  
Liam raised and walked through the room, lowering regularly his head to avoid the thick branches of wood supporting the roof, to stretch his legs and arms, stopping by to refresh his dried throat with the cool water brought here some hours before, during the day. A dull pain was pointing itself in his back and neck, reminescences of the shuttle accident.  
  
"Major ?"  
  
He spun around, too fast, almost smirked in pain as his neck twinged. "Zo'or ?" He walked closer to the bed and sat on his heels by it, making it that he was to eyes-level with the wounded Taelon. His voice was slightly softer than the one he usually spoke to Zo'or with when he asked : "How are you feeling ?"  
  
The eyes of the Taelon cracked open and closed again as if Zo'or was simply too tired, or lacking too much energy to afford keeping them open. Like the first time he had woken up in a start even not stiring before. His answer was only vaguely ressembling the sharp, order-giving voice Liam had grown used to, this voice halfway between male and female now only seemed weak and toneless. A whisper and now more, so much that Liam had to bend down closer to the alien's lips to hear. "The loss of energy is becoming… increasingly painful."  
  
Liam did not offer his help, knowing enough about taelon biology to recognize that he would not be able to do anything to Zo'or's benefit. And also, as strangely humanized in idea as it could look like, he would attempt to keep the idea of this painful, promised death out of Zo'or's mind. Nothing of it came out on his features but – and the one that considered himself to be a declared enemy of this particular Taelon found himself suddenly admirative of such a self-control, a control that he knew himself unable to display, not to this point anyway – but in the way Zo'or's human traits seemed to melt into each other, dissolving the façade, the ends of his limbs quivering, Liam knew that another wave of pain had just travelled into the Taelon's body, making him look surprisingly frail in this moment.  
  
The blueish body relaxed again on the matress and Liam almost expected him to have again found refuge into a mercifully painless coma, but the blue eyes, which seemed now too wide in this face that was neutral in pain, opened again, slowly, as if risking to peek in the world of livings again, as Zo'or breathed air in a hiss, making Liam shiver as he imagined that it could be the last gulp of air…  
  
He thought that if Zo'or had been human, or even if he had been still Taelon but only somewhat more… receptive to such humanness, that he would have taken in his own larger one this delicately shaped hand which fingers hung, unmoving, dead on the edge of the wood matress. "Should you not sleep Major Kincaid ?" Zo'or sighed, once his eyes were closed again. The tone that wanted itself sounding upset, mirroring Zo'or's feeling at the idea that Liam would spent the night at his bedside, rang false to Liam's ears, perhaps by its lightness, or perhaps by its lack of conviction, like if the Taelon said this only out of a habit, only out of the pride he had sheltered himself in, showing that he did not want to be disturbed, to depend on a Human.  
  
"I can't sleep thinking that you could… well…-…" He closed his mouth shut, hesitated on the word, finally decided to just skip it. "…- while I'd be asleep. It makes me sick to think that someone could be completely helpless and alone in agonizing," he justified himself. Feeling the coolness of outside slowly creeping inside, through the solid-looking but not very useful barrier of wood, he was tempted to take the wool blanket that he intended to make himself a thin bedframe with and to cover Zo'or with it, but remembered in time that the Taelons did not feel the changes of temperature as much as did the Humans, or that, if their energy-based metabolism was indeed sensible to such a fact, it was not directly unpleasant for them.  
  
To Liam's surprise, as he watched carefully Zo'or's face, seeking for the answer that he hoped would come, the white, thin lips curled up into a bitter smile, this sardonic smirk being for this alien what would come the closest to a smile. "You seem reticent to use the word Major Kincaid. You should not, it would be feeling only yourself, there is no need of this akwardness you embarrass yourself with : I will die and I am fully aware of such an end."  
  
Liam felt slightly touched by this fatalistic comment coming from someone that he had never really pretended to know, but he thought of being a person that would be everything but fatalistic. He was aware that a lie would be percevied and despised by the Synod Leader even through his reduced capacities. When he came to pronounce the words, he wondered if one day someone had been completely honnest with Zo'or, when even the loyalty of a man implanted with a supposedly reliable CVI was no more his. "In your place, I wouldn't like to be constantly reminded that I'd die." His thoughts continued in the same way. If the sitation had been reversed, Zo'or would probaly have let him to die without attempting to bring him help, as had confirmed the conversation they had had earlier. He could only realize too, that in Zo'or's place, if he were the alien lost on an alien planet that he knew very little about, if he were the one wounded to death, lying on a bed, suffering like a martyr most probably, abandonned in only company of someone who he had no real trust in – even if he was very loyal – if he were in this position right now, Liam would be… scared the hell out of himself, terrorised by the perspective of dying, alone, lost in wilderness, helpless, and faraway from the people he belonged to.  
  
"The idea of death remains present, even if you do-…" The words interrupted themselves, without the tone lowered or the eyes to open themselves again. The Taelon bent his head on the pillow, and cracked his eyes open tiredly, the blue in them still as vivid and piercing as it always had been, glancing straight into Liam's own greenish eyes. "What are your thoughts ?" Liam knew that he could not hide anymore the look of complete incredulity to appear in his eyes and all over his features, which brought Zo'or to explain himself. "My energy is dissipating itself. In this state of half-conscienceness, I can capture your thoughts, or at least perceive that they are troubled, and troubling." A short pause, the time for a Human to breath in, for Zo'or to close his eyes, swallowing the pain that was coming back up. His voice had grown into weakness when he repeated his prior question. "What are your thoughts ?"  
  
The use of frankness was certainly his best choice now : to not say anything would be foolish, and he did not feel in an imaginative mood enough to invent something that would be credible. "I thought… I was thinking that, in your place… I'd be scared the hell out of myself." He stopped there and later added, the logical continuation of his previous thoughts, putting here the needed, evident difference that there was to make between a Human and a Taelon. "But that it's probably not the case for a Taelon."  
  
The look in Zo'or's eyes suddenly became serious. "Empathy is a feeling that is human, Major Kincaid." A little hesitation in the words confirmed to Liam that it was only the prelude to the true answer. The Taelon closed his eyes slowly, his features frozen into a mask of tiredness, the same fatigue that his face had borne after their other conversation and before he had lost conscienceness again. His energy was slowly leaving his body, not in a form that Liam could see but in a form that he could definitely sense.  
  
Like calm is prior to the storm, Zo'or's body once more relaxed on the matress, just before being shaken by a long, quivering snap of pain that turned the blueish pathways into a blinding white color, illuminating the small room for a time briefer than a second. A lightning of life. Zo'or did not lose his human facade this time but his features became hazy as if seen through a thick layer of fog, he was already beginning to dissolve. The Major looked, unable to help, unable to think to help, as the alien's back arched, his hands grasping the edge of the bed. He could not do anything for him, could only hover over Zo'or, gazing at him with warmth, transmitting with his eyes the will of help that he could not bear to put into gestures.  
  
He would never have thought that he would feel pity for Zo'or, for the Taelon that destroyed a little more of the Resistance and than reduced humanity's chances, a little more every days. It was not the fact that Zo'or was wounded that brought him this admiration melted with empathy- toned pity, it was only the thouhgt of what an enormity it could be for a Taelon, that told of himself being emotionally distant from his body, the fact to die in the awareness of his own helplessness on an alien planet, in the company of someone whom he would have chosen not to trust under normal circumstances.  
  
The wave of pain finally faded away, Zo'or let his tense body fall back on the matress. For a time the only audible noise was the shallow breathing of the Synod Leader. A sigh passed onto his parted white-blue lips, under his eyes that were still closed tihgtly. "I am afraid," Zo'or said, his tone low and almost shameful, of those who confess a sin.  
  
"You're right to be afraid Zo'or, anybody would be. You don't have to be ashamed of it."  
  
The answer was awaited, and then came, Zo'or's voice cut into tight stacatos by his increasing fatigue, consequence of all this energy that had abruptly and massively left his body. "For a Human, it is… excusable… Not… For a Taelon."  
  
With these last words, the conscienceness that Zo'or had maintained in himself in an effort that would perhaps cost him dear achieved to fade away. Liam watched as the Taelon closed his eyes, as his breathing came out weakly but regularly again, as his skin took this blueish vaguely glowing tone, the feeble weight of the Taelon drawing his form into the matress.  
  
Kincaid finally let himself slid down onto the wodded floor, crossing his legs, shaking arms a bit to re-establish the lost blood-circulation in them and, his head tilted against his leather coat, he prepared himself to spend the night awake, waiting and watching by his enemy's side, at least not to leave a fear so difficultly admitted fall into ridiculousness, after the humiliation that this avowal had had to cost Zo'or's pride. This fear that was for Liam both justified and excusable.  
  
At a certain point of the night, when Liam was listening outside to the insects' crick-cracking and to some very early bird's singing, the convulsions came more often and more violent, toring from Zo'or's throat muffled groans, whispered in a language that Liam did not understand. He slid his hand in the unmoving one of Zo'or and with his other hand straightened the bandage strapped around the alien's abdomen until the energy loss calmed. Kincaid held Zo'or's hand until he felt a pressure back against his own hand, he would never be certain enough to say that it was an unconscious move or a muted form of thanking, the only one that he would probably ever receive from such a persona.  
  
  
  
FIN 


End file.
